You might think that academics would be more disposed to appreciate the value of middle age for the experience and the extra years of reflection upon life that older grad students bring to departmental culture.
But no, you would be wrong. For example, one of my colleagues relating hearing this dismissive comment (I paraphrase) about a recent potential hire, a woman who had had a successful career in the private sector before shifting gears and getting her doctorate: "I just don't see her moving the discipline forward. Her dissertation is probably the best work she'll ever do."
Perhaps it's from a sense of nostalgia for their own forever-lost youth - but these fifty-ish profs who make such ageist judgments about forty-ish women seem totally impressed with the youthful arrogance and swagger of the twenty-somethings who still think they know it all and will be masters of the universe. Whereas I (at 46) am more keenly aware with each passing day how much there is that we will NEVER know, no matter how early in life we start our doctoral work. It's sad how people who really should know better value youthful braggadocio over the humble, middle-aged awareness of the limits of knowledge and influence.
Posted by otto0114 at January 5, 2007 01:58 PM